Readers Reading Readers — A Commonplace

...I was a human beingI was a child of life; a boy, Freedom was my source; But Chinese soldiers took my joy, It was the end; my loss. Societies just hoard and hoard, More and more they rush to get; But I wasn’t made in China, I was murdered in Tibet. Evil was the frequent conduct, The essence of Beijing; But I was not a product, I was a human being. To hear it few will wanna, But the simple truth is that: I was not made in China, I was murdered in Tibet.

...the modesty of the nightA hand cupped the heel of a woman who wished to climb a tree to see the stars more clearly. The men laughed into their tumblers. They all went swimming again with just the modesty of the night. An arm touched a face. A foot touched a stomach. They could have almost drowned or fallen in love and their lives would have been totally changed during any one of those evenings.

...we will all goFeeling very much out of sorts herself, Jo hurried into the parlor to find Beth sobbing over Pip, the canary, who lay dead in the cage with his little claws pathetically extended, as if imploring the food for want of which he had died. "It’s all my fault — I forgot him — there isn’t a seed or a drop left. Oh, Pip! Oh, Pip! How could I be so cruel to you?" cried Beth, taking the poor thing in her hands, and trying to restore him. Jo peeped into his half-open eye, felt his little heart, and finding him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino-box for a coffin. "Put him in the oven, and maybe he will get warm and revive," said Amy hopefully. "He’s been starved, and he shan’t be baked, now he’s dead. I’ll make him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the garden, and I’ll never have another bird, never, my Pip! for I am too bad to own one," murmured Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in her hands. "The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now, don’t cry, Bethy. It’s a pity, but nothing goes right this week, and Pip has had the worst of the experiment. Make the shroud, and lay him in my box, and after the dinner-party, we’ll have a nice little funeral," said Jo, beginning to feel as if she had undertaken a good deal.

...an isolating trapAmerican men, in an attempt to avoid any possible hint of committing unwanted sexual touch, are foregoing gentle platonic touch in their lives. I’ll call it touch isolation. Homophobic social stigmas, the long-standing challenges of rampant sexual abuse, and a society steeped in a generations old puritanical mistrust of physical pleasure have created an isolating trap in which American men can go for days or weeks at a time without touching another human being. The implications of touch isolation for men’s health and happiness are huge. Gentle platonic touch is central to the early development of infants. It continues to play an important role throughout men and women’s lives in terms of our development, health and emotional well being, right into old age. When I talk about gentle platonic touch, I’m not talking about a pat on the back, or a handshake, but instead contact that is lasting and meant to provide connection and comfort. Think, leaning on someone for few minutes, holding hands, rubbing their back or sitting close together not out of necessity but out of choice.

...the process of transformationI was a small child, crouching over a swampy pond, watching tadpoles. Enormous, soon to become frogs, they swarmed around the bank. Through the thin membrane covering their distended bellies, the tangle of intestines was clearly visible. Heavy with the process of transformation, sluggish, they provoked one to reach for them. Pulled out onto shore with a stick, touched carelessly, the swollen bellies burst. The contents leaked out in a confusion of knots. Soon they were beset by flies. I sat there, my heart beating fast, shaken by what had happened. The destruction of soft life and the boundless mystery of the content of softness. It was just the same as confronting a broken stem with sap flowing out, provoked by an inexplicable inner process, a force only apparently understood. The never fully explored mystery of the interior, soft and perishable.

...Our souls sit closeOur souls sit close and silently within, And their own webs from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

...subtle acts of clarityThe senses don’t just make sense of life in bold or subtle acts of clarity, they tear reality apart into vibrant morsels and reassemble them into a meaningful pattern.

...what is the wind Where is this light Your eyes see forever? And what is the wind You touch when you run?

...sublimated into seizuresShe is grieving the death of her brother, and her grief has sublimated into seizures. Her disorder is news to me. I didn’t know you could convulse from sadness. She’s not supposed to know, either. She’s not supposed to think the seizures have anything to do with what she’s lost.

...I must dieAdieu, farewell, earth’s bliss; This world uncertain is; Fond are life’s lustful joys; Death proves them all but toys; None from his darts can fly; I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

...I will arise and go nowThere midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day, I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

...among brutes as well as menSometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still standing on their defense, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my215 light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated. Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius) waked me in the dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of the woods for this purpose. In the course of the winter I threw out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not got ripe, on to the snow-crust by my door, and was amused by watching the motions of the various animals, which were baited by it. In the twilight and the night the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by their maneuvers.

...Wir aber spüren nur den Gegenwind und wandelt uns, auch wenn wirs nicht erreichen, in jenes, das wir, kaum es ahnend, sind; ein Zeichen weht, erwidernd unserm Zeichen… Wir aber spüren nur den Gegenwind.

...I am the captain of my soul It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.